TOE STORY

This involves some personal dealings I have had with the German medical system. It points up some interesting differences between our medical establishment and theirs, but it's kind of disgusting in places, so if you're squeamish you might want to skip it.

I mentioned earlier that just before I started this trip, I had toe trouble. The bottom of the big toenail on my left foot was red and painful, and Missus Slade urged me to go to an urgent care facility in Maryland, where a doctor diagnosed it as an infection, and prescribed antibiotic pills, which I began taking. He said it would be better in a few days.

Well, after I arrived in Germany it started getting worse, making it hard to sleep and hurting pretty badly when I walked, and it turned much more red around the bottom of the nail, and the nail was turning white, and then sort of green. I'll spare you the photo.

It got to the point that Missus Slade importuned me through our Whatsapp dialogues once again to seek medical council. which I did on Friday. I arrived from Aachen at my Cologne airbnb and was greeted by host Edward's girlfriend/roommate, Duoli. She and Edward are students, or maybe teachers, at the University of Music and Dance here. He plays French horn, and she is a composer. She is from Shanghai, so we chatted in Chinese. (Later I heard Edward playing snatches from Mozart's 1st horn concerto in the other room. Cool people).

Duoli gave me directions to the hospital next to the university where she and Eddie loiter, and I walked up there, but all the doctors were at "an important meeting" and none of them could see me! The reception people summoned a taxi for me and sent me up to St. Vinzenz's Hospital up north a few miles.

After a couple of long waits I was summoned to a treatment room where a young man took a look and sonogramed the toe area. He said it was full of pus. He was obviously a trainee. for he called in his trainer, Dr. Schubert, a nice looking early-thirtyish woman who was very friendly and professional. She looked it over and we talked about various options. They could treat it and take the nail off, or just treat the inflammation so it would last the next three weeks. She called in the big cheese to have a look, an older guy, and he asked me questions and then told the young doctors to go f'rit. 

Dr. Schubert explained to the young guy where to cut. It was a long and complicated explanation. She numbed the toe with just one long injection on each side. (My American podiatrist once took three tries to accomplish that). Then they made a cut under the skin at the bottom of the nail (the nail itself has come completely unhinged at its roots and is going to come off eventually) and began expressing the matter. It gushed out in an extraordinarily copious manner - more and then yet more. They made a little hole at the other side too, to connect underneath  the skin. Schubert said maybe I should look away, but I said no I wish I could make a Youtube of this, which seemed to amuse and appall her slightly. None of this hurt at all, after the initial numbing pin prick.

Then Schubert explained to the young guy how to make a "Lasche" out of a rubber glove. She had him put on his regular  "Gummihandschuhe."  (In German, gloves are called "hand shoes." Isn't that great?!) Then she had him unpack a special surgical hand-shoe from its sterile packet and, using sterile scissors, cut a very narrow strip from the side of one of one of the glove's fingers and then, using only tweezers, slip this cut sliver of rubber into one side of the toe and out the other, to keep the drainage open. Then he used the tweezers to tie the two ends into a little knot on top of my toe.

Dr. Schubert said I must come back tomorrow afternoon to see the wound doctor so they can decide what I should do next. They gave me Ibuprofin (because it's going to hurt when the dope wears off, she said) and some Pantoprozole, a proton pump inhibitor (I don't know why that). There was no prescription or drugstore nonsense. They just handed me the pills. And she told me to keep the foot elevated. They bandaged it up very prettily like a little mummy with lots of gauze extending down around the foot. Fortunately I could still get my shoe on.

Then the two of them sat at the computer and decided how much to charge me, scanning through long long lists of procedures. She said she would try to make it "günstig" (favorable). I told them no matter how much they charge, I bet it's cheaper than in the U.S. and they both smiled and said "we know."

So, guess how much, for consultation with three doctors, a sonogram, an hour's surgery, and meds? THIRTY-NINE FUCKING EUROS AND 85 CENTS!! $45.  I went to the hospital Kasse and paid the bill, tossing the petty cash out of my wallet like a drunk at last call.. I felt like Trump or something.

Three weeks ago my dentist in the U.S. took a look at a little bump on the roof of my mouth and said don't worry about it, and charged me $160! Since I like Germany anyway, it really would make sense for me to come here for all my medical treatments. Except that I have Medicare and Blue Cross so everything is free for me anyway. But who, in OUR system, is getting all this money? Something is very very wrong.

Here's one really good part of this whole medical adventure:  It was all in Deutsch! Not a word of English was spoken through the whole experience! That's what I came here for.

I took a cab back to the train station with a jolly old Turkish taxi driver. Since I was an American, he wanted to know if I knew Fethullah Gülen. He also explained to me in Turkish German and Turkish Arabic why it was impossible for anybody to actually be an atheist. 

It's the next day now, and I can now walk with no pain for the first time on this whole adventure.